NutVal 5: What do want it to do?

22nd December2015
NutVal 4.1 is now available for download from the downloads page. This new
release contains a number of enhancements and we hope
you will find it useful in your
food assistance work.

What's new in NutVal Version 4.1

Minor corrections to help file text and navigation buttons have been
made to improve clarity, and formatting on the Logistics Calculator
sheet has been improved.

New foods have been added in response to requests from users. These
include the WFP, USAID/USDA, and Bangladesh Standards and Testing
Institute (BSTI), specifications for fortified rice; Tahini, Yoghurt,
and Herbs. As usual, specifications are indicted in the food database by
adding the name of the specifying organisation in square brackets [ ].
Alternative names for foods are indicated using round brackets ( ). The
use of different text colours to distinguish specifications from food
composition data has been discontinued.

Special nutritional products such as RUSF, RUTF, MNP, and LNS are
now listed under a new food group called SPEC. NUTR. PROD, rather than
being included in the MICELLANEOUS group. Fortified blended foods are
still listed under the BLENDED FOODS group.

Dietary Folate Equivalent (DFE) values for some special nutritional products have been updated.

Changes in fat requirements for young children: In NutVal 4.0 the
nutritional requirements of additional age groups were introduced. These
included 6-23, 24-59, and 6-59 months. Fat requirements were calculated
for all groups according to UNHCR/UNUCEF/WFP/WHO (2002), i.e. as the %
of energy that should be supplied from fat. For the general population
the minimum percentage is specified as 17%, for pregnant and lactating
women it is 20%, and for young children it is 30%. In NutVal 4.0 the
definition of young child was taken as 6-23 months, as this was
consistent with WHO definitions used in work on infant and young child
feeding. However, this resulted in the fat requirements for these age
groups being less than recommended by various expert committees. In NutVal
4.1 it has been decided, for the purposes of calculating fat
requirements, to define a 'young child' as aged between 6 and 59 months.
This results in an increase in the fat requirements for these age
groups and these higher requirement figures are included in NutVal 4.1.

Data saving: A bug which prevented the saving of nutrient values entered by the user on the calculation sheet has been fixed.

Please continue to provide feedback and report any bugs so we can continue to improve NutVal for nutrition programming. Thanks!